Re: Terminology for composite attributes

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:26:06 +0000, Paul <paul_at_test.com> wrote:

>dawn wrote:
>>>I would take "arity". As in the arity of a tuple.
>>
>> OK, that works. I like that this term is used with functions and
>> graphs too, but I don't like that "arity" sounds a bit pretentious or
>> academic. I've never heard a software developer use the term arity,
>> even when talking about number of parameters.
>
>I think the etymology of the term is from the endings of "unary",
>"binary", "ternary" "denary" etc. Then an "it" was stuck in for some
>reason, maybe the word "ary" sounded too silly.

     "-ity" is a standard suffix. Consider "regular" -> "regularity", "bogus" -> "bogosity", and more.

Sincerely,

Gene "Sincerity Itself" Wirchenko Received on Thu Mar 24 2005 - 23:43:50 CET